Months ago, pundits were calling Donald Trump the president who would lead us into World War III.

After a historic week in which North Korea announced its intent to denuclearize and to move, along with South Korea and the United States, toward finally ending the Korean War after 68 years, the media were calling him something else — and so were his supporters.

According to The Daily Caller, during a rally in Michigan on Saturday — running counter to the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner — Trump supporters began chanting one word — “Nobel! Nobel!” — when the president mentioned North Korea, indicating they wanted him to win the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in bringing Kim Jong Un to the table.

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“If you look at China, last year with China, and look, he’s been of great help — President Xi,” Trump told the audience in Washington Township, Michigan, speaking of China’s help on the North Korean issue. (Which is a matter of some debate, but it seems rather cheap to bring it up now.)

“He’s a friend of mine, but he likes China, I like the USA. But he’s a friend of mine.

“But I will tell you one thing, we’re not playing games. And I remember, you know, it was very rough three, four months ago–”

And that’s when the “Nobel! Nobel!” chant started.

It left the usually effusive president speechless — if not for very long.

“That’s very nice, thank you. That’s very nice. Nobel,” he told the crowd.

“I just want to get the job done,” he continued.

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If the idea of the Nobel Committee honoring Trump seems farfetched to you, consider even the president’s most hated media adversary is calling him and the other principals virtual locks for the award should peace negotiations continue apace.

“The President and other key players in the initiative would also be shoo-ins for the Nobel Peace Prize — and how Trump would love to join his nemesis Barack Obama on the list of honorees,” CNN’s Stephen Collinson wrote Friday.

When even the network that Trump calls “very fake news” is saying it, you can bet the crowd in Michigan isn’t that far off.

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And why shouldn’t he? Eight years of Barack Obama and “strategic patience” couldn’t do this. Bill Clinton and George W. Bush couldn’t do this. We were told that a businessman couldn’t get things done on the international stage and that he would only mess up the fragile stasis between North and South Korea. When he started responding to North Korea’s rocket launches with serious action — and with monikers like “Rocket Man” — the establishment was horrified.

And yet, here we are. Barack Obama got a Nobel Peace Prize for nothing. Donald Trump may end up getting it for a feat almost nobody thought imaginable just a few months ago.

C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between America and Southeast Asia. He became a staunch right-winger at the age of three: While watching a clip of Ronald Reagan, he told his mother (to her great horror), "Mom, I'm a Republican." Except for a brief, scarring and inexplicable late high-school dalliance with Ralph Nader and his ilk, he's never looked back.
Aside from politics, he enjoys literature (especially British comic novels and modern Japanese lit), indie rock, jazz, spending time with his wife, drinking coffee and watching Formula One and football (of both American and world varieties). He is the proud owner of a very lazy West Highland white terrier and an extraordinary troublesome poodle mix of indeterminate provenance. His proudest accomplishments include reading the entirety of Thomas Pynchon's published oeuvre.